The Toll-Gate Read online

  The Captain flicked over the staple that held the gate to the side-post, and stepped back a few paces, pulling the gate with one hand, and with the other, holding Beau’s bridle, imperceptibly manoeuvring that sagacious animal into presenting his haunch instead of his head to the opening. Beau, who knew very well that his stable lay beyond the gate, snorted, and threw up his head, as though he were jibbing (which indeed he was), and the Captain backed him a little, saying soothingly: ‘Steady, now, you old fool! What’s the matter with you? Come along! You know a gate when you see one!’

  Beau certainly knew a gate when he saw one, and would have passed through the narrow opening without the smallest hesitation had his master permitted him to do so. But the hand on his bridle was acting in direct contradiction to the voice, and was forcing him back. Fretted, he tried to jerk his head away, presenting all the appearance of a horse unwilling to approach an obstacle. Meanwhile, the Captain, still talking gently to him, was rapidly scanning the hedge. It was difficult to see more than its ragged outline, but a rift in the clouds disclosed the moon for a few seconds, and in the faint lightening of the scene he thought he could detect a movement in the shadows, as though a man, crouching in the ditch, had shifted his position slightly.

  Beau found that the extremely irksome hand on his bridle had relaxed its pressure, and at once stepped forward.

  ‘That’s more like it!’ said the Captain encouragingly, and led him through the aperture. He fastened the gate again, and walked past the toll-house, and down the road, to where, fifty yards away, a white farm gate gave access to the big meadow at the top end of which was situated the barn that stabled Beau. Opening it, he turned Beau into the meadow, and pulled the gate shut with a clap behind him. Then he strode back to the toll-house, along the grass verge, keeping in the shadow of the hedge, and treading noiselessly over the soft ground. There he took up a position, just round the corner of the house from the road, and waited.

  He had not long to wait. In a minute or two the wicket-gate creaked, and an unhurried footstep sounded. Heavy cloud again hid the moon, but there was light enough to see, when the footsteps drew abreast of John, that the figure which passed was that of a stocky man of medium height.

  ‘Waiting for me?’

  These pleasantly spoken words made the stocky man stop, and wheel about, grasping the thick stick he carried. Before he had time to raise it (if such had been his intention), he found himself enveloped in an unloving embrace from which it was quite impossible to escape. He seemed to realize this, for he stood perfectly still, merely saying in a mildly expostulatory tone: ‘Lor’ bless you, big ’un, you don’t have to squeege the puff out of me!’

  ‘It’s you, is it?’ said John, removing the stick from his grasp, and casting it aside. ‘I thought it might be! Let me tell you, Mr Stogumber, that it is unwise to smoke your pipe when lying in ambush!’

  ‘So that’s how you boned me!’ said Mr Stogumber, apparently pleased to have this point explained. ‘A very leery cove, ain’t you?’

  ‘No, but I don’t care to be spied upon!’ said John.

  ‘Spied upon! What, me?’ said Stogumber, in astonished accents. ‘Seems to me as it’s you as laid in wait for me, Mr Staple! I wasn’t meaning no harm! I didn’t jump out on you sudden enough to give anyone a spasm! All I done was to come out to stretch my legs. What’s put you in such a pelt?’

  ‘Were you stretching your legs in the ditch?’ asked the Captain sardonically.

  ‘I won’t try to slumguzzle you, big ’un,’ responded Stogumber. ‘I wasn’t. But this being a very lonely road, d’ye see, and me a peaceable man, I didn’t want to run into no trouble. How was I to know you wasn’t a bridle-cull?’

  ‘You knew well enough who I was when you heard me speak to my horse! Why didn’t you show yourself then?’

  ‘What, and have you laughing at me for being cow-hearted, which I won’t deny I am – very!’

  ‘Coming it too strong!’ said John. ‘What kind of a flat do you take me for, to be flammed by such gammon as that?’

  ‘Since you ask me, Mr Staple, I don’t know as how I take you for a flat at all, not by any manner o’ means!’

  ‘Then stop trying to turn me up sweet, and tell me what the devil you mean by spying on me!’

  ‘Down to every move on the board, ain’t you? Seems to me as how a cove as is as knowing as what you are didn’t ought to be minding a pike,’ remarked Stogumber. ‘What’s more, I couldn’t hardly believe you could be the pikekeeper, not when I clapped my ogles on that beautiful-stepping tit o’ yours! If I was a peevy cove I should suspicion you must have prigged him, but I ain’t. I daresay you come by him honest, though what you want with a bang-up bit of blood and bone – you being what you are – I don’t know! Howsever, it ain’t none of my business –’

  ‘None at all!’ John interrupted. ‘I told you yesterday I’m not a gatekeeper, but a soldier!’

  ‘So you did! And a very handsome trooper you’ve got! In fact, I was mistook in him: I thought he was a prime ’un!’

  ‘Mr Stogumber,’ said John, a grim note in his deep voice, ‘my horse is not a trooper, as you very well know; and I am only minding the pike to oblige Brean! Now perhaps you’ll tell me –’

  ‘Your cousin,’ nodded Stogumber.

  ‘Now perhaps you’ll tell me,’ continued John, ‘why you are so interested in my movements?’

  ‘There you go again!’ complained Stogumber. ‘I’m a cove as is interested in most things – not you partic’lar!’

  ‘Are you indeed? Well, I, Mr Stogumber, am a cove as is interested in you extremely particular!’

  ‘You’re bamming me!’ said Stogumber.

  ‘No,’ said John. ‘Nor am I flattering you!’

  ‘Well, even if you ain’t, you don’t have to look so bluff, nor to grip my arm so as I can’t feel my fingers no more! That’s the worst of you big ’uns: you don’t know your strength.’

  ‘I know mine to the last ounce, and so will you very shortly! I’m interested in you because it seems to me that some business you’re mighty anxious to conceal has brought you to these remote parts. Don’t spin me any more nacky tarradiddles about this property you have been commissioned to purchase, because we have agreed, have we not? that I am not a flat! You tried yesterday to discover who I am, and how I come to be here; and tonight I find you watching the toll-house. Why is it so important to you to know where I may be going, or what I may be doing, Mr Stogumber? Just what kind of an undergame are you playing?’

  There was a pause. John had the impression that his question had taken Stogumber by surprise, but it was impossible, in the darkness, to read his face. After a moment he said: ‘You must have had a shove in the mouth, big ’un, though I’m bound to say I never suspicioned it! P’raps you’re just betwattled! Did you ever hear tell of the Wansbeck ford?’

  ‘No, and I don’t want to hear of it! If you provoke me into losing my temper, Stogumber –’

  ‘Now, don’t go for to do that!’ begged Stogumber. ‘I ain’t a match for a man of your size! Besides, it wouldn’t do you no good if you was to mill me down. O’ course, it wouldn’t do me much good neither, but it’s you as ’ud catch cold – in the long run! If you never heard tell of the Wansbeck ford, p’raps you never heard tell of a signpost being changed round so as to mislead folks?’

  ‘I didn’t. And if you’re trying to hoax me into believing that you’re here by accident tonight, spare your breath! There is no signpost between this gate and the village! Try another fling!’

  ‘Never heard of that neither!’ said Stogumber. ‘That’s queer!’

  Considerably mystified, John demanded: ‘Why?’

  ‘’Cos I thought you had,’ replied Stogumber cryptically. ‘Either I’ve been mistook – which ain’t likely – or you’re as fly a cove as ever tapped a shy one on the shoulder! Which again ain’t likely, se